Free Radical
by feint heart
Summary: Beacon Hills. A small town in California where the creatures that go bump in the night become a reality. Samantha Camden and her family were completely oblivious to that when they packed up their lives in North Carolina and moved across the country to Beacon Hills. Sam had no idea what to expect the rest high school experience to be like, but it definitely wasn't this.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf or any of the characters except for Samantha Camden and her family/friends. This story is going to go along with the TV series starting from Season 1. Any dialogue that is similar comes from the TV show, I'm not trying to take credit of their amazing wit and writing.**

**Hey, there. I'm kind of new to the whole "fanfiction" thing. Constructive criticism is highly appreciated. Don't be a jerk about it, but I can handle it if you say that I'm doing something wrong or have any ideas you'd like to voice. This story is a Stiles/OC story. Just wanted to clarify that for you all.**

Chapter One: Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite

Nerves are the worst sort of greedy. They take away precious hours of sleep and can make anyone lose their appetite in the blink of an eye. All they do is take, take, take, but the only thing anyone ever gets in return is bags under their eyes and the inability to sit still for more than five seconds. Being nervous was the equivalent to banging your head on the table a couple thousand times. It's just this ongoing whirlwind of thinking up worst scenarios and self-doubt.

Samantha Camden was tired of feeling nervous, but she couldn't exactly stop this emotion that kept punching her in the gut with the force of a two ton boulder. As the hours ticked away and the impending first day of school approached, Sam felt her nerves skyrocketing. Her stomach was twisting and untwisting, which caused her appetite to be long gone.

"Come on, Sammy," said her brother, Oliver. He nodded to her untouched dinner plate with a smirk on his face. "I know girls are crazy about making big and glamorous entrances on their first day of school, but passing out from starvation is not the way to draw attention to yourself."

"Ha." Sam barked out a dry laugh and rolled her gray eyes. "Aren't you quite the comedian? Those high school girls are going to be all over you like ugly on an ape." Sam shoveled a glob of mashed potatoes into her mouth anyway, knowing Oliver was right. That was not the impression she wanted to make. Being the new girl was going to draw enough attention by itself. If Sam fainted in the middle of the hallway, she was pretty sure she'd never be able show her face at the place again. It'd be time to move again. Preferably to Mexico. Where she can join the drug cartel and never have to face any of the students of Beacon Hills High School again.

It had been approximately a month since Sam's mom had decided it was time to say sayonara to their lives in North Carolina, and move across the country to Beacon Hills, a small town in California. Sam doesn't know how her mom even found this town, or what compelled her to move to _Beacon Hills_, of all the places in the United States. "A change of scenery," her mother had said as she distractedly wrapped a vase in newspaper, "a fresh start for us." Sam wasn't all gung-ho about the move, but she agreed with her mother on one thing. There wasn't much tethering them to their lives in North Carolina. It was time to move on. It was time to start fresh.

Oliver smiled when he saw Sam taking baby bites of her dinner, and continued to shovel his down like it was the first time he'd eaten a meal since the turn of the century. Sam didn't understand it. She liked to eat. Hell, she loved to eat, but her brother barely took any time to savor the flavor of something before throwing something else into his mouth. The boy was a vacuum. What was the point of eating it there was no savoring of flavor?

"Do you have everything you need for tomorrow?" Sam asked Oliver after a couple minutes of silence. Oliver nodded and put a finger up, indicating for her to wait until he finished chewing.

"Yeah," he said after swallowing. "Pens, pencils, notebooks, binders, everything that I could possibly need and way more. I'm prepared, so you can stop nagging now."

"Hey," said Sam, defensively. "I'm just being a good sister and making sure you're not that student that makes teachers want to pour scalding coffee on their eyes." Oliver just sat back in his chair with a devil-may-care expression on his face.

"School supplies are not going to prevent teachers from feeling that way." Sam decided to ignore him.

During the silence that ensued, the nerves crept up on Sam again. Her mind was wondering through all of the different scenarios. Sam shoved all thoughts of tomorrow into a box labeled "shit not to think about". If Sam learned anything over the past couple of years, it was definitely that it's easier and generally better on one's mental stability to shovel away stupid things like emotions instead of actually dealing with them. That may sound unhealthy to you and Dr. Phil, but it was Sam's way of coping. Coping was the key to survival.

"You done?" Sam broke the silence, pointing to Oliver's empty plate. "Great," she chirped before he even had the chance to answer. "You can do the dishes."

"What?! No way," Oliver cried out in indignation. "I washed the dishes last time."

"Well, I'm the boss around these parts. What I say goes."

Oliver scoffed. "You are not the boss of me. I don't even give myself enough authority to say that I'm the boss of myself."

"But I'm older," she said shrugging a shoulder as if to say 'I don't make the rules, but actually, I do'.

"By a minute! You're older than me by one minuscule minute." He crossed his arms over his chest with a bitter expression covering his face. "I probably would have been first if your impatient ass hadn't pushed me out of the way."

"Don't get all sour because I've been better than you since the womb." Sam teased with a smirk on her face. When Oliver's mood didn't change, Sam sighed dramatically. She stacked the plates in a pile before speaking again. "Fine, we'll practice a little sibling team work and do them together. How does that sound Mr. I-like-to-make-everything-complicated?"

"Sounds like a crappy deal," said Oliver, holding a hand out to Sam, "but I'll take it anyway." Sam slapped her hand against his and shook it firmly.

"You really need to work on your negotiation skills." She took their plates to the sink and turned on the faucet. There was a pile of old dishes waiting there for them, making Sam regret letting the pile build up over the past couple of days. She scraped all of the extra food into the trashcan and started washing the dishes. Oliver came over to help, grabbing a washcloth on his way.

"Dinner was delicious by the way." Oliver leaned against the counter. His sickly sweet voice made Sam instantly suspicious. "I have no idea where you learned to cook like that. You should really consider becoming a chef. You could be the next Bobby Flay. Making the big bucks, because you're cooking is just that go–" Sam cut him off with a snort.

"Flattery won't get you out of doing the dishes, Oliver." Oliver's face fell slightly. "Besides, do you really think they can fit all this –" She gestured to her mass of long, wavy brown hair, "– in a hairnet or whatever? I can barely get the beast to stay in a ponytail."

"Cut it," he said simply.

"That, my darling brother, is blasphemy." Sam didn't think she'd ever be able to chop off her hair. At the moment, it hung down to her belly button in messy waves. It was just so _thick _and she'd never had a short haircut. There was a long list of reason as to why cutting it would be worse than the Zombie Apocalypse. _Wow, Sam, way to sound like a girl_, she thought to herself.

"Then don't complain about it."

"Hey, asshole, don't be an asshole." Sam shot back, flicking water at his face. Oliver reared back and glared, but didn't retaliate. Which was odd. Very odd. Usually he would smack her upside the head or something. Or a full on water fight would immense.

Which is why Sam asked her brother skeptically, "What do you want?"

"You're going to have to stay after school tomorrow," Oliver informed her. "Just thought I'd give you a heads up." Sam stopped washing the plate in her hands to give him a confused look.

"Why would I do that?"

"I'm trying out for the lacrosse team." When Oliver saw Sam's blank look, he explained. "The principal saw my file and e-mailed Mom. He thought it was a good idea, said I should go to the practice tomorrow." He shrugged like it was nothing. "Did you know Beacon Hill's has a really good lacrosse team?"

"Why would I care about a bunch of guys running around like caffeinated toddlers?"

Oliver ignored his sister's jab and carried on. "They won the state championships the last three years. That's, like, crazy good." Sports. Sports used to be everything to Oliver. Basketball and track and field were his entire life. Ever since he was a little kid it's been all about sports, and he was good. Amazing, actually. He had hoards of trophies and awards to prove it. Oliver used to spend 99.9% of his time practicing. His motto was, "If you can move without groaning by the end of the day, you've been doing it all wrong."

"Have you ever even played lacrosse?" Sam questioned. She handed Oliver the wet plate. He started to dry it off and answered.

"I've messed around with a couple friends," he shrugged. "But I've never played for an actual team." Oliver put the now dry and clean plate into the cabinet. "It seems easy enough, and I think I've got the general idea down. Catch ball in the stick net-thing, hurl ball into goal."

Sam doubted it was that easy. She'd seen people play lacrosse. It was brutal.

"First day of a new school and you're already cementing a spot in the jock clique. Way to go, little bro." Sam put up her fist and waited for Oliver to bump it with his own. The bump never came.

"A minute, Sam. Get over it." Oliver ignored her outstretched fist like it would take away cool points if he even thought about bumping it. "That minute does not make you God."

They pair stayed silent for a good few minutes before Sam blurted, "I wonder if the principal has seen my file." Oliver barked out a laughed and clutched his heart.

"Samantha Camden, record holder of the most detentions back home. Certified badass supreme. He probably had a heart attack when he read about what you did to our principal back home."

"The snake wasn't poisonous or anything." Sam grumbled defensively.

"He probably e-mailed Mom a brochure titled 'How to Deal with Your Juvenile Delinquent." Sam didn't mention that she wasn't really much of a badass anymore. Her pranking days ended months ago, but she didn't want to think about the cause of her extreme personality shift. It wasn't the time to dredge up those memories. There would never be a right time to think about _that. _

"You've gotten in as much trouble as me, buddy." Sam turned off the sink and they headed up the stairs towards their bedrooms on the second floor. Sam and Oliver had the second floor all to themselves. Two bedrooms, a bathroom that they unfortunately had to share, and office-like room where they could do all of their school work. The room was kind of pointless, considering they each had a desk in their room. The first floor belong to their mother. The only time they really went down there was to watch TV and eat dinner.

Sam changed the subject from their delinquency days and focused on tomorrow, "So, I guess I have to give you a ride back, then."

"That's what I was hinting at."

Sam figured as much. Their mother was constantly working. When she wasn't working, she was catching up on sleep. She worked long hours at the Beacon Hills hospital as a nurse. Her work hours were always fluctuating because she took whatever hours she could manage to get. They needed all the extra money they could get.

In North Carolina, Sam and Oliver had gotten jobs at a local diner run by a family friend. The minimum wage – plus tips – had meant their mom could chill it with the long work hours. But now, in Beacon Hills, Sam and Oliver were jobless. That meant their mom had to skip a couple meals with her children to make enough money for them. Sam and Oliver sometimes go days without seeing their mom due to conflicting schedules.

Plus, Oliver didn't have a driver's license. That boy was an all-around craptastic driver. He has pathetically failed his driving test four times. Oliver's last test was an excellent improvement, though, considering he didn't crash into anything this time. Their mom had not been amused that time she found a check in the mail asking for money to replace the Taco Bell drive through menu he had hit. Sam, on the other hand, thought it was a magnificent moment and wished she could have seen it. Taco Bell was way overpriced anyway.

"Yeah," Sam nodded, "that's fine. I'll stay to watch the practice. I'll even make posters. Big glittery posters that say 'Oliver is #1!'.You'll be able to hear me cheering, 'that's my brother!' all the way on the field." Oliver seemed to rethink the situation.

"On second thought," he decided, "maybe I'll just walk home. I wouldn't want to interfere with your busy schedule or anything." Sam gasped and put a hand over her heart in mock hurt.

"Do I embarrass you, Oliver?"

"You have been an embarrassment since birth." Oliver bopped her nose lightly. "But I've learned to deal with it. I've accepted who you are as a person." With that, Oliver strutted towards his bedroom. Sam scrunched her nose at him.

"Okay, fine. No posters, no cheering, but I will be watching." Oliver gave her a thumbs up without looking back.

"That's more I like it."

Sam walked to her own bedroom and sat on the bed for a couple minutes. Her mind was going in a thousand different directions again, and a headache was starting to bloom across her skull. She was fine when someone was around, when there was anything to keep her mind off of it. But when she was alone, everything thought came back like a flash flood. Even a steaming hot shower, which usually worked to calm Sam's nerves, did nothing. It was like someone was controlling her thoughts with a remote. Fast forward. Pause. Rewind. Play. Replay. Replay. Replay.

Sam spent hours after that, eyes shut tight, trying to force sleep to come, but the majority of the night was spent wide awake. _Just a new school,_ she told herself, _you can handle a bunch of teenagers._ Groaning, Sam rolled over in bed and her eyes focused on the picture on her nightstand.

The pictured showed four people, none of them even looking at the camera. That's what Sam loved the most about the picture. None of it was posed, no fake smiles or informally fixed positions. Everything was downright natural. It was real. To this day, Sam has no idea who took the picture. It was her and Oliver's birthday party/back to school party. It was a barbeque in their backyard.

Random people Sam doesn't remember were in the background. Most of them were shoveling down hamburgers or hotdogs. One of the kids even had mustard dripping down their shirt. Typical Benny Fisher. Even as a sixteen year old boy, he still eats like a pig. But the camera was focused on nine year old Sam. She was aiming a hose at Oliver, whose brown hair was pasted to his face and dripping. But he kept a hotdog tightly clenched in his fist. Caroline Camden – Sam's mother – was sitting in the grass, laughing at the scene in front of her with crinkling eyes. Cradled in her arms was a baby, barely six months old at the time, smiling toothlessly at the twins.

Sam felt her stomach clench and a hollow feeling started to make its way through her body. She let out a frustrated sigh and grabbed the picture frame, opened up the drawer of her nightstand, and placed the picture in there gently before slamming the drawer shut again.

One thing was for sure. Sam was not getting much sleep that night.


End file.
